Concept of a hybrid architecture for Care-O-bot

Care-O-bot is the prototype of a multi-functional robot assistant for housekeeping and home care, to be used by elderly people in order to live independently in their homes for a longer time. Therefore, an easy, intuitive, and dependable operation of the home care system is essential. Care-O-bot has to cope with many different situations and has to fufill complex tasks even in dynamic environments. Furthermore, the robotic assistant must be able to execute not only single tasks at a time but several tasks concurrently. In this paper we present the concept for hybrid control architecture appropriate for performing different tasks over long periods of time. Furthermore we show our experience with JAM on the robot assistant rob@work, which was presented successfully at the Hannover Trade Fair 2001 and conclude with the need of a symbolic planner for robotic assistants.